My name is Kristine and I am a 23 year old Controlling, Finance and Accounting student at Pforzheim University of Applied Science. Since it is part of my studies to succeed an internship abroad I decided to make my American dream come true. That is when I decided to apply for an internship at Lufthansa Cargo AG in Atlanta. And now I am here – or unfortunately I have to say…my time is almost over!
I started my six-month internship in March 2015. Atlanta is the capital of Georgia and is located in the southeast of the USA. The weather in the city (also known as “Hot”Lanta) has a mind of its own. You nearly always feel incorrectly dressed – and the fact, that the Americans love to use the air conditioning all the time, makes it even more difficult to plan your outfit. The summers are very hot here so you can get a pretty nice tan!
The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world’s busiest airport and the headquarter of “Lufthansa Cargo AG – The Americas”. This includes North America, South America and Canada. LCAG has two offices. One directly at the airport and one in the business district called “Buckhead”. That is where I was living and working. The office is located directly on Peachtree Road, the main street of Atlanta – …and there are approx. 71 further streets with the name “Peachtree” in it, therefore the city nickname “The Big Peach” ;-)

I was an intern for the Global Account Management Team (GAM). The Team is responsible for all the Key Accounts of LCAG, meaning the most important customers. While my first weeks I learned the basics about the cargo business, got to know the responsibilities of my department and of course I also met a lot of new people and nice colleagues. During the six months in the GAM team my daily tasks included especially the monthly reporting on the performance of our business partners. I worked a lot with the internal reporting system and supported the team in preparing and organizing customer events. I received also some projects where I could work independently i.e. improving and rebuilt the current reporting processes and templates. My boss and colleagues were all very kind and helpful and welcomed me very nice in their team. In Buckhead we are working in an open-plane office. There are also some other teams which is why it never gets boring at work. I can tell you, an internship at LCAG is definitely more than just “copying” and “serving coffee around the office” :-)

Another unique experience during the time of my internship was when I and a couple of other interns got the chance to inspect our freighter the Boeing 777, also called “The Triple 7”. First we got a tour through our warehouse at the ATL airport. After that, the moment everyone was waiting for came: The Triple 7 landed and we were allowed to see the freighter from inside, meaning the cargo bed and the cockpit! That day was really awesome and this was probably the first and only time in our life’s seeing people loading and unloading an aircraft from that distance.

Beside work I also had a really great time here in Atlanta. I met a lot of new people and friends and together with the other interns we had a lot of fun. We had typical BBQs, battled against the humidity and heat with awesome pool-partys or went hiking to some beautiful places. Thanks to our vacation days some of us used the opportunity to explore the United States beyond Atlanta and travelled for example to Chicago and New York! Living and working in another country wasn’t that hard as I was thought it probably could be. At the beginning I sometimes had problems to understand the southern accent of the US, tho’ my English was not the worst… and of course every real American will recognize you are a German because of your sweet accent :-) The people here are all really friendly and helpful, so that it didn’t take me to long to settle in. Only thing I still couldn’t get used to, is the air conditioning in the restaurants… although it is so hot outside you might need a jacket anyway if you don’t wanna freeze to death :P … just saying :-)

Much to my regret my six months in the US are almost over. I can’t believe time has gone by so fast and at this point I want to thank my team and all of my colleagues for the great time I had. I really recommend everyone to do an internship abroad. It is a great opportunity and life experience and I wish all the best to those who would like to undergo something similar. I am pretty sure, you won’t regret it!